this is my DIY showcase blog. Because. Why buy it when you can make/grow/cook/sew/carve it yourself at twice the price and 10X the effort?

2012 Garden: So it Begins….

Yes, we’ve started our 2012 garden! It’s not unusual for me to start seeds indoors by mid-March; I do this most years, because we grow tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants from seed. It always amazes me how tiny these plants start out, and how by July they are almost as tall as I am. It’s a bit of a miracle, really. I started 5 kinds of tomatoes. I don’t know if we’ll end up growing them all, because we have limited space, but as of today, all five have sprouted and they’re growing quickly. None of the eggplants are up yet, and only one kind of pepper has so far emerged.However, it would be UNHEARD of to have any plants outside at this time of year. This is Minnesota, people. Normally we would have snow on the ground, or just recently melted, but we freeze at night all the way through April and part of May in this part of the country. Usually.

But this year has been just WEIRD. We barely froze at all in the winter, and once March came, it was like full-on summer was here. We’ve had temperatures in the 70s and even a few 80s for the entire month of March. Well, if life is going to give us crappy winters and global warming, I am at least going to get good food out of it!

We don’t plant much in the ground, anyway, so we have more leeway against frost in the first place, but with temps in the 70s and not looking to plummet for a long time, we put out cold-resistant stuff last weekend. We planted three window boxes of lettuce and salad mix, two tubs of peas (one snow pea pods and one snap peas), and a cool-weather mixed box of radishes, green onions, and bright lights chard. This is a good month to six weeks before we would normally put even cool-resistant plants out, but this is a strange, strange year.
cool weather box – radishes, green onions, bright lights chard
the peas are coming up!
The plants are a lot of work. Not so much right now when they’re tiny little spindly things, but come summer we will have to spend a fair amount of time caring for them. And I love it! I love coming home from work and checking on all my plants first thing. Mostly I love eating them. Can’t wait for what’s in store for us this summer!!